Tuesday, November 06, 2007

A Deadly Battle: Diddy Kong Vs. Donkey Kong Jr.

I've been stewing about this tonight while playing some older games. Something happened a while ago, and it really bothers me. And what bothers me more is the fact that we are allowing this happen, with little or no regard to the lost soldier in the 16-bit era that we have never heard from again. You all sicken me. You should be ashamed and disgusted with yourselves. Don't worry, I'll wait here while you whip yourselves.

That's probably you. Sitting there. Playing Donkey Kong Jr. That prick they call Mario. He kidnapped your dad, and guess what, that shit don't fly with you. He's treating him like King Kong, only instead of destroying most of 1930s Manhattan in a blind rage, he just gets locked in a cage. You swing from vine to vine trying to save his bad ass because I guess Mario must have drugged him or something. It's unclear really.

So there you are. Nothing exciting there. Donkey is literally unchanged since the last time you saw him and you dropped him on his skull, ultimately leaving him functionally retarded, which we'll get to later.

LOOK! He had his own cross branded cereal. Which apparently came with a sleeve of Pez candies inside. I miss that. I loved getting candy in my cereal. It happened all the time. Why not balance out that sugar coated sugar filled puffed corn ball with a packet of Skittles? Seems like common sense to me! And now, we are trying to ban Tony the Tiger from our air waves. 200x sucks.

Nothing funny to add here or of any real importance other than to show how much of a prick Mario really is. Look. He is trying to kill DK! WITH A HAMMER! WHILE HE HOLDS HIS GOD DAMN CHILD! God bless DK Jr. for keeping a positive outlook on the whole situation while his papa gets knocked into an asylum.

Something happened though. You see, the sixteen bit era had started. And Nintendo decided that the Donkey Kong franchise needed to reach the next level. So the obvious choice was to farm it out to a developer and have them turn it into a side scrolling platformer. That's when these guys came in:

We seem to hold Rareware in a rather high regard. We made the mistake of thinking it was a big deal when Microsoft bought them out. All they have to show for it is a remake on an N64 game, a mediocre sequel to a mediocre FPS that tried to be a previous successful game that was on the N64, Grabbed By The Ghoulies and Viva Pinata. I'd put the accent mark in that word, but I don't know it, and don't care to learn it. Anyways. Outside of Nintendo Projects in the early and mid 90s, Rare is a company that seems to be scared to make games. Conker, is exactly like Donkey Kong 64, which is exactly like the Banjo series, which is just an updated 3D world version of the side scrolling SNES games they made. I'm not saying they are a terrible developer, Goldeneye is fantastic, the Star Fox they did was alright (at best) , as is the DKC games in general, but for whatever reason, we hold them in a higher regard than we should. Back on schedule. Rareware turned DK into this:

A big lumbering doofus. Wearing a necktie. Yeah, that's the next logical step. From Nintendo's big bad guy that kidnaps girlfriends, to a platforming oaf that just wants his bananas. Hooray! But that's not the worst of it. Something else changed. Donkey Kong seemed to changed a little too much.

That? That's Diddy Kong. DKs sidekick and apparent nephew. The original plan was to have Diddy be Donkey Kong Jr. But the character change was too drastic for Nintendo's liking, so they gave them the choice. Either make him look more like DK Jr. or change his name. They changed his name. And now, several Donkey Kong games, a shitty kart game, and a playable in Smash Bros. later, he's here to stay. With no mention of DK Jr. outside of a trophy in Smash Bros. Melee. What happened to him? Where did he go? Did Mario snuff him out? From what I heard, he went on to teach remedial math for a middle school in Redmond. So, for you DK Jr., where ever you may have gone, this is to you buddy, and I hope to see you again soon.